After India and Canada, it’s now time for Australian Windows Phone developers to buckle up for an interesting challenge that awaits them. Microsoft and Nokia have jointly announced a new Application Development challenge where the first 50 developers who fulfill the development criteria, win a Nokia Lumia device.

The reward will be a Nokia Lumia 710 for three new apps built or a Nokia Lumia 800 for four new apps. This initiative is region-specific and is open only to the citizens of Australia.

A short summary of the terms and conditions are as follows:

Qualifying apps must be published between Jan 1st 2012 and 12 midnight EST Mar 30th, 2012.

Publish 3 new apps to win a Nokia Lumia 710 or 4 new apps to win a Nokia Lumia 800

Apps must be new and published to the public marketplace and excludes updates to existing apps.

This offer is only open to Australian based developers who submit apps to an Australian registered Windows Phone Marketplace account.

For budgeting purposes, this offer is limited to the first 50 developers who publish 3 or more apps and is limited to 1 phone per developer.

There are a number of promotions in progress with Nokia in Australia; the apps submitted for this challenge must differ from those submitted elsewhere. ie no double counting.

Once your apps are successfully published at the Windows Phone marketplace, send an email to dglover at microsoft dot com with a subject “Windows Phone Apps for a Nokia Phone Challenge #20120101” where do ensure that the body of the email contains the deep links to the respective apps. In case you need a token for free Windows Phone Marketplace registration and a temporary device for testing your apps, connect with the Australian Developer Community here.

Participate in this interesting challenge and win Nokia Lumia devices for free. Hurry!